But I have promises to keep before I sleep
by SongBirdie
Summary: She's not asking for forgiveness. She knows she won't get it. She's not asking for understanding. All she cares about is her daughter. That's all she can let herself care about.


**But I have promises to keep (before I sleep)**

**Disclaimer: **I do not own NCIS; it is the property of its respective creators.

Title taken from the poem **Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening** by **Robert Frost**

I don't know who said "**Dead men tell no tales**" originally, but it wasn't me.

**Summary:** She's not asking for forgiveness (_She knows she won't get it_) She's not asking for understanding. All she cares about is her daughter. That's all she can let herself care about.

**POV:** Italicized paragraphs are thoughts/memories (_Look like this_)

**Timeline:** There are flashbacks to the past and previous events in this story, but it is set in the beginning timeframe of "**Cloak**." Before the effects of Domino trap Lee, but the events leading up that have already been set in motion.

Written for the **Women of NCIS**, **Fair Fight**, and **An Irregular Occurrence** challenges on **NFA**.

A big thank you to **Shelbylou **for all her help with this.

**Warning: **There is use of the 10 Commandments in this story, also mentions of God, Jesus, The Bible, the Koran, Allah, and the Devil. No disrespect is intended to any of these works/beings. I used them purely for the plot, and this story is not intended as a reflection of my personal beliefs. I do not mean to offend anyone, and I'm sorry if I do. But if thoughts on the spiritual outcome of life decisions isn't your cup of tea, please don't read this. Thank you.

**Vance:** "So, was Lee a hero or a villain?"  
><strong>Gibbs:<strong> "Both." - from 6x7 "**Dagger**"

Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once. -**William Shakespeare**, from Julius Caesar, Act II, Scene II.

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><p>They'll call her a traitor. They'll say she committed Murder, and Treason, that she broke more laws than most people could ever dream of.<p>

She knows them all. She's written them all down in a notebook that lives in her briefcase, which never leaves her sight. It simply has "**Crimes**" written on the first page. The pages after are filled with the names of the crimes she's committed, the laws she's broken.

They'll say she was never their friend. Jimmy will think he meant nothing to her. She was their friend. He wasn't nothing, far from it. He meant a lot to her. They'll say she never cared. He'll think all she did was use him, that all he was to her in the end was a puppet in the show she wishes he had never become a unwitting player in. She cares for them all, they're her friends. She thinks, in a different world, she could have let herself love him. But this isn't that world, and she can't care about them, and she doesn't care about them, not as much as she cares about her daughter. She cares for no one the way she cares for her daughter.

They'll say she could have asked for help, that she'd chosen to stay silent. They're wrong on both counts. If talking meant Amanda died, she couldn't take that risk. And she'd never had a choice. She hasn't had a choice since the day she promised her parents she'd look after the newborn sleeping in their bedroom if something ever happened to them. She had to protect her daughter, and if anyone was going to mess this up, if anyone was going to have the blame for Amanda dying on their shoulders, it was damn well going to be her. You always protect your family. No matter what that might mean for you.

They'll say she never believed in the law. She does, completely. In all of them. The law was her Bible. She believed in it like other people believe in God, Jesus, Allah, whatever they call their higher being. If it wasn't lawful, it was a sin. For her, it used to be that simple. She could quote you different laws like chapters and verses of the Bible, or the Koran. She loved the law, she still believes in the law.

Which makes what she's doing that much worse. She's never been a rebel, she's never been a troublemaker, she likes her life to make sense, to be orderly. She liked having right and wrong written out where she could read and memorize it. She loves the law. She broke it to follow the oldest law there is, by the oldest and wisest judge ever known.

It's written into our DNA, into the chemicals in our brain, in the blood that runs through our veins and gives us life. Family, pack, kin, clan, whatever you call them, in any language, it was Nature's Law that you do anything you can and give everything you have, to protect them. Family comes over all else, no matter what.

Even if that meant breaking man's laws. Even if it meant, for her, giving up her chance at that other world, with a man who loved her, and who she loved dearly, a world with friends, but most of all, a world that made sense. Even if it meant turning her back on the law, something that meant to her, what it would to someone who loved God, who believed in God, but they're now doing the Devil's dirty work. Devils don't play fair, any of them, in any form they take. They use what you love as leverage. She's on the other side trying to get her daughter back.

She's broken countless laws among men, and most of God's.

"**You shall not murder.**"

She's done it twice. She'll never forget sneaking into Petty Officer Vargo's trailer in the middle of the night, his face was peaceful in sleep, and how she couldn't look at him while she killed him. She'd never looked at pillows the same way again.

"**You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.**"

Agent Brent Langer. She'd work beside him for four months, she'd laughed with him, she'd liked him, thought he was a great agent. He was _too _great at what he did. He wouldn't leave it alone. He knew her story didn't add up. He knew she was responsible for the leak. He'd tried to do the right thing and she'd killed him for it, marred a good man's name. A dead man's name. Dead men tell no tales, and they can't defend themselves. At least she'd had enough respect, enough regret for what she was doing, to look him in the eyes when she killed him. It was the most she could give him, even as she took his life, and ruined his legacy.

She still sees his accusing stare every time she closes her eyes. She sees his condemnation of her, his horror, his disgust. She thinks he knew, in his last seconds, what she was going to do to his name. She feels his blood on her hands, never leaving, no matter how much she scrubs. Fitting, some part of her thinks. She'd ruined his name and his memory so the least she can do is carry that stain on her. She remembers standing over him, watching him die, and her whispered, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Standing there as his life-blood drained out of him, she knew she could never make up for this. He died staring his murderer in the face, pure condemnation and horror written in his eyes. Forgiveness wasn't there. It never would be. She knew that. She deserves that.

"**Do not lie.**"

She doesn't even know how many times she's done that now. That itself is a lie. She does. She remembers the look on Jimmy's face when she said had _papers_, _cases_, _work _at the office. Disappointed, but trusting. He'd kissed her cheek and told her to try and have some fun. She remembers giving her briefing, feeling Agent Gibbs' eyes studying her intently and for a fleeting moment, she thought she could feel them burning into her soul. She remembers her blood-stained palms sweating, she remembers when he rushed to make sure she was okay. She remembers the look on his face when he realized, or so he thinks, that Langer was the traitor. She remembers it was an expression of horror and agony, and how strong and comforting his arms felt around her. She remembers all the lies. They play in her dreams, along with accusing eyes, and the dark, haunting, larger than life pictures of her desperate daughter.

"**You shall not steal.**"

She was stealing information she'd spent her entire law enforcement career protecting. She was selling information about how to attack a sister country. She was betraying the law, her country, her _badge_, by giving this information to those who wouldn't do anything good with it. And she hated herself for it. She hates the woman she's become, hates what she's done. She doesn't know who she is, anymore. _Murderer_! _Traitor_! Lawyer...Agent...Lover...and always a _Mother_! She doesn't know how she looked her friends, her co-workers, the people she wants so badly to be with in that other world, in the eye and lied to them.

She wishes they'd seen something. She wishes they'd realized something about her story didn't add up. She wishes they'd called her on it, not Langer. She wishes Gibbs had figured it out, Tony or Ziva, God, even Jimmy. She doesn't know how she had gotten away with lying to Gibbs. The man is a living lie detector. She doesn't know if he truly does believe her or if he's simply bidding his time to confront her. She hates that she doesn't know which of those options she wants to happen.

Tony, well, he hadn't been there. He'd missed that first part. She thinks, in a way, that he might have known it was her before anyone else. She was his Probie, at one point. She's always liked him better than Gibbs. He'd tried to be nice to her, help her become an agent, tried to explain why the law sometimes hinders as much it helps. She didn't understand that, then. She does now.

She thinks that he'd done a good job, with someone who liked order and knew nothing about how to be an agent, when he had just been thrown into the deep end of the ocean, and had to figure out how to swim, himself, and also make sure she didn't drown. She knows Jimmy respects him.

And Tony, well, Tony knows how to act. He does it every day. She thinks if anyone knows how to spot a lie, a mask, it's someone who tells and wears their own.

Ziva, well, to be honest, Ziva scares her. A lot. Terrifies her, is more like it. She thinks Ziva might just kill her for being a traitor, for selling information that would lead to her homeland being attacked, or that maybe, she'd understand. That she'd know the hell of only having bad choices to choose from, to act upon, and know what it was like having to live with the ones you made. Ziva would be the most painless to face, of the bunch, oddly enough. Whatever she might inflict on her physically would never compare to Gibbs realizing she had lied to him, or Tony knowing just how badly his Probie had screwed up. She'll take torture any day.

If Jimmy asked her, she would tell him the truth. She would tell him all of the horrible things she's done, and the reason why, she would tell him about a beautiful little girl who she loves more than life itself. She would tell him that she loves him, but she doesn't want him used as leverage, that she can't lose him on top of Amanda. She would tell him that she'd rather he thought she was selfish and that she had used him than let those monsters near him. She'd tell him that it was safer for him to hate her.

In another world, everything would be okay at that point. Jimmy would tell Tony, who would tell Gibbs, and then the team would go get her daughter back in once piece. There'd be an investigation, and she'd be cleared of criminal charges, but lose her badge. Amanda would go home with her and Jimmy, and they'd be a family. Gibbs would tell her that the information hadn't been leaked, that they'd been in time. The team would be cold to her for a while, and she would lose her law license for a year, but they'd back her up, and she'd go into general practice. She and Jimmy would live happily ever after, with Amanda safe with both of them.

She wants that world. She wants it so badly. But that's not what's going to happen, this isn't that world. This isn't a fairytale. The fact she's doing this to save Amanda won't excuse what she's done. In this world, her world, Gibbs didn't confront her, Tony wasn't there, Ziva was working on it in Israel, McGee wasn't close enough to her to suspect anything, and Jimmy was hurt and avoiding her. In this world, none of the others confronted her. Here, it was Langer. She wishes it hadn't been. She knows she could have never shot the others.

Part of her stills wants them to call her on it. _(The damage is done._) But she knows better. She's made her prison, and she'll get her daughter out of hers and then settle in. Anytime she thinks about telling someone, telling the nearest person, any time she knows she's close to breaking, she closes her eyes, (_tries to ignore Langer's accusing stare, Petty Officer Vargo's face_) digs her nails into her palms until she draws blood, and thinks of her Manda's laughter, of the pictures she's been sent of her baby girl's helpless face, and she can ignore the blood on her hands, the weights of the lies she's told, the need to tell someone the truth, for one more minute, one more hour, one more day, however long it takes to get her back.

Because Amanda is her world. (_She has been since she carried her out in her arms and away from the car crash that stole their parents from them, left nothing behind but their mangled bodies. She has been since she looked at the unharmed baby girl in her arms, so tiny and trusting. Since she knows the promise she made her parents, only months ago, is upon her, since she was treated for cuts and bruises by the paramedics, since she saw her parents' bodies being loaded into the coroner's van, since she looked at the baby in her arms, and knew that she was __**her **__baby girl now. She knew and understood then, that she had a promise to keep; family came first, before all else._

_Amanda became her world in the mist of the broken bodies of her beloved mother and father. In the hustle of sirens, the glow of blue and red lights, in the pain that comes from a loss so deep, from the commitment of a promise being acted upon, from the (only) commandment she ever followed, __**honor your mother and father**__, and love for the little girl that survived. Her little girl. Amanda became her child then, her world. And she's never stopped being it_.)

Because she loves that little girl with a fierceness borne from grief and pain and loss, from surviving, and being left behind. From being there for her first word, her first steps, teaching her right from wrong, playing pretty princess with her, taking care of her when she got the stomach flu, from loving her so much she doesn't know how she ever had a life before her.

Because she loves her so much, because she can't live without her, because her love for Amanda is a mother's love, fierce and primal, selfless and selfish, desperate and hopeful, because her daughter's pain is her pain, has been since that fateful crash that changed everything, she'll do whatever she has to to make sure she's alive, whatever she has to to get her back to her safe, and when she's damned, by man and God for the horrible, unforgivable things she's done, she won't care as long as her child is okay. (_It will be worth standing at the gates of hell knowing that Amanda is safe and will live a good life, and no matter which level she is condemned to for eternity, she knows that what she did was borne out of love and devotion for the child that owns her heart._)

Because in the end, in this world, there's only one true law. It's Nature's Law; You always protect your family. No matter what that might mean for you. She's already failed Amanda and her parents' memory, by letting Amanda be taken, by not seeing that someone would use her as leverage. She will get her back, alive, if not whole. She's already dead inside _(Langer's accusing stare, lies, so many lies, Petty Officer Vargo's face, the sound of Jimmy's voice, "Do you care about me at all?" Having to tell him "No." And hating herself for the hurt she's caused him with that lie. Amanda's defeated face_. ) She's a collection of the crimes she's committed, the ghosts that won't leave her, and her dreams of a better world that will never happen. The only thing that matters anymore, the only thing she can do anything about, is to make sure that Amanda will be okay. No matter what she has to do to make sure of that.

She'll break every one of Man's Laws; God's Laws, and she'll take whatever sentence both rule to her, she'll accept both her Judgment Days with grace, after she gets her daughter back. No one and nothing else matters until she does that (_they can't_). Family is all that matters. Her child is all that matters. She'll tell herself that until she believes it, because she can't afford to believe anything else. Getting Amanda back is all that matters. After that, well, the Law, all of them, and God, can do whatever they want to and with her.

They'll never be able to beat the living hell of Langer's death glare or the peace on Petty Officer Vargo's face before she kills him, having to kill two innocent men, ruining a good man, a great Agent's name, the feeling of overwhelming loss and grief at the sight of her parents' mangled bodies and their dead, soulless eyes, the fear and resentment she felt looking at that baby girl and thinking she wasn't ready for this, wasn't ready to be a mother, having that little girl be her lifeline, the lies, always pressing down, _down_, until she feels like she can't breathe, the nightmares, her reality, her minds whispers to her, the Devil making a playground out of her dreams. Always whispering to her, taunting her with images of hellstone and brimfire. There's no God in sight, and the staircase to heaven has slowly faded away step by step, act by horrible act, until she's left standing with flames dancing around her as the Devil himself laughs with glee for the sins she's committed. The heartbreaking look on Jimmy's face when she has to say "No." to "Do you care about me at all?" The pictures of her daughter's terrified face, being helpless to save her, but damn well going to try, the guilt at letting her parents, Amanda, Jimmy, Gibbs, Tony, Ziva, _herself_, down. The hell of looking in the mirror and hating who you see staring back at you. No, nothing God or man could do is ever going to be able to top that.

In the end, she's knows she's a sinner. She knows she'll never make up for what she's done. She knows that one day, Amanda will hate her for what she's done in her name, and she's sorry for that, but not enough to stop. She's never going to have that other world, but she'll keep on dreaming. She has to.

The Director wants to see her. Is the game up? She places a smile on her face, and pretends everything is okay. She thinks three things on her way to see him; She's a lover. She's a sinner. She's a mother. She thinks that somehow explains it all, in the end.

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><p><strong>Written May 31st, 2011<strong>  
><strong>Finished June 6th, 2011<strong>


End file.
